


The Stranger Among Us

by Anestasia_Kay



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Abortion, Angst and Tragedy, Canon Compliant, Consensual Sex, Drama, F/M, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Jenova Project (Compilation of FFVII), Pregnancy By Rape, Psychological Horror, Puppet Cloud Strife, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:14:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anestasia_Kay/pseuds/Anestasia_Kay
Summary: Jenova remains fragmented, existing among both the living and the dead, incomplete, her children either destroyed or in hiding. Few remain. All attempts to reincarnate Sephiroth have ultimately failed, yet Jenova's resolve is as strong as ever. Peace has finally come to Seventh Heaven, and life is better than anyone can remember. After recovering from geostigma and moving back home, Cloud Strife swore he would never leave his family again. For only one reason imaginable would he do so: only if Tifa asked him to. Post-canon.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 48
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been tagged appropriately. It contains graphic descriptions of sex, rape and violence, and may be triggering for some people. Please heed content warnings and read at your own discretion.

Down below, he waits. Hidden in neglected crevices and abandoned niches, he has made his home in the gloom. Moisture clings to his skin, mildewed and dank. Shielded by plates of rusting steel, supported by highways of pipeline, he has remained. Oxidized metal groans, shifting with the wind, structures grown tenuous with age.

It has been a long time. Seasons pass with no more announcement than a slight change in the breeze, trash and dust swept by capricious fronts. At a certain depth below ground fluctuations in climate are nominal, the temperature consistent, temperate. He shares space with the unmentionable creatures, entire societies of antennae, legs, ocelli. There is another ecosystem down here in which he has his role, separate from the overgrown excess above.

So hidden, civilizations have gone before him in blissful ignorance, days on months on years. Wars and celebrations mean less when they tramp by in succession, each homogeneous to the next when observed from afar. People lose their faces, their self-assigned importance—the horde of humanity is numberless in the reflection of eternity. He was part of them, once. Desiccated memories linger, long ago decomposed and forgotten. They are more fragments than intact recordings, corporeal urges to consume, to defecate, to exist as an individual among a species. As with any metamorphosis, his body was dissolved, disassembled and rebuilt. It was the price he paid to have the true nature of the universe revealed to him.

A heavy bond tethers him, vibrating along the wavelength of his mother-tongue. What was once a choir has ebbed, weakened. Brothers and sisters gone, the ensemble now a small troupe, scattered, disadvantaged by segregation. His is an endangered breed. The fiber has frayed over decades, chafed and unraveled as strands of the whole are lost, yet the fetter holds. Their head speaks, the source of their collective consciousness. There have been many plans, several attempts, few advancements, but patience is a virtue. There will always be another opportunity.

It is much brighter on the surface than he remembers. Cacophonous, insulting. The air lacks the sonority of the depths, and at first it’s difficult to reconcile how much he wants to crawl back to the protection of the darkness. He complies blindly to his orders. Human sounds alert him when he approaches, and he studies them briefly, invisible, noting their shape, their bearing. It’s a simple thing for him to adapt, almost a regression to some unrealized reality; it takes no effort. He does this with arrogance and self-satisfaction—it is a rare skill that gives evidence of both his heritage and his potential. He had worn the label of _failure_ at one time, renounced and unappreciated in his infancy. Historically he capitulated to the egos of his siblings, unbothered to lie and wait while they each placed their own bids for Mother’s love. But he never lost faith: his talents would eventually prove useful. All that was required of him up until now was to survive, to wait for the time when he would be called forward.

Now it is his turn. The chance for recognition, to prove himself worthy, has arrived. Since the first days after what he refers to in his mind as his rebirth, he has dreamed—or by some demented process similar to dreaming—of this moment. His own opportunity. The call to arms has come, and he must heed his mother's call.

He scans his collective memory, uses his internal radar to hone in on his prey. His strategy is borne of endurance. He has learned from the mistakes of others, knows that forthright aggression is an undesirable method; entire armies of his brethren have been defeated in this way. In any case, his abilities naturally lend themselves towards stealth and subversion. He can take his time, there’s no rush. He can observe his target, look for areas of vulnerability, wait for his exact moment.

He stands alone in the street, surveying. People ignore him; he blends in. They hurry past, too interned within their own narratives to pay him any attention. A modest drizzle paints the city, as if to welcome him, and he finds the cold refreshing, nostalgic. He can almost make out each droplet of water sparkling by the synthetic light from the neon sign in front of him.

This is the place. He has never been here before, but has seen it many times in the memories of his brothers.

The sky fades as night approaches. Bodies mill about inside, patrons come and go. His expression is self-assured, cut by angular shadows coming off the cinderblock. He’ll stay here a while, continue to watch. The moment is not quite right, the appropriate window has not yet opened.

He can take his time.

-:-

The row of hanging plants swayed, their marbled, heart-shaped leaves flapping gently by the open window. The rain came swiftly, dispersing the heavy mist that had blanketed the city over the last week. In spite of the chill, Tifa was enjoying the draft. Her face and neck were dusted red, crispy and slightly tender. The autumn air cooled her inflamed skin.

She’d put up a valiant fight, but in the end her opponent had been too strong.

The corners of her lips upturned in a sheepish grin. However bad the sun had beaten her, Cloud had fared worse. Of course she’d insisted on sunscreen for everyone, but the kids were in and out of the water so often, they stole much of her attention when it came to its reapplication. Cloud, in the meantime, had been left to fend for himself beneath the blazing heat. She hoped Barret was remembering to make the kids use sunscreen in her absence, considering he never used the stuff himself. She and Cloud had returned to Edge that morning, unable to get away from the demands of their jobs longer than a few days; it would be another few before the children came back from Costa Del Sol, and she fully expected the pair of them to be tomato-hued and sun-scorched.

Smiling hurt her face, but she couldn’t help herself. It had taken some time for things to settle—Deepground’s precise and carefully planned attacks had seemed to happen just after the fight with Sephiroth and his remnants; one event on top of the other, barely a year between them. For a long time afterwards there was a public tension that no one ever talked about, suspended like smog. Even now she always kept her gloves close by, and Cloud was never without his swords. Stability was not a given right, it was a privilege, a lesson she’d learned as a teenager.

Fluently, Tifa counted out the bills laid out next to the register, its drawer open and empty. She neatly documented the amount into the red leather-bound book on the counter, and in the column next to that a list of the items she’d received as payment instead of money. A modest sum, good enough considering the weather. Few people were inclined to venture out in such dismal rain, particularly on a weekday. Another slow evening, yet business had gradually begun to increase, as people generally relaxed back into some semblance of normality. She entertained the idea every so often of buying a personal computer to make the household and business accounting easier, but could never justify the outrageous cost. Why pay for a machine to do what her brain and her hands were perfectly capable of doing? Especially when the kids always needed knew clothes, some part of the building always needed fixing or replacing—and while the cost of living in the outskirts of Midgar’s ruins was relatively cheap in comparison to cities like Junon or Rocket Town, many items were still stupidly expensive.

She glanced absently at the clock, despite having done so five minutes ago. It was this subtle worry that couldn’t be shaken: the true remnant of Sephiroth’s terrorism. Constantly prepared for the third or fourth shoe to drop. It was creeping on a half-hour past eleven, the front door locked, shades drawn. She tried to calculate how late Cloud would be getting home, based on the rain, the conditions of the roads, unpaved between towns and sometimes impassable because of the weather.

When she’d agreed to the idea of a vacation she hadn’t fully understood how much each of them needed it, as much as they needed new clothes or a new water heater. Maybe even more. More surprising still that Cloud had suggested it first. She could still hear the caws of seagulls and crashing of the surf on the beach, and she longed to go back there. The grim skies of Edge were almost a slur compared to those crystal blue waters, and she felt acutely that mild melancholia one experiences post-holiday.

Her mood quickly lifted to the soft roar approaching from down the street, as it circumvented the building to enter the alley round back. She started to band the money into thousand-gil bundles, stacked up the coins in columns. The roar died, and she waited, listening to the ticking of the clock’s second-hand, other vehicles passing by the front windows, a siren—a fire truck, racing away from her.

Tifa turned, and walked back through the kitchen, past the dry stores and into the garage. She stopped in the doorway, a hand on her hip.

“I wondered what was taking you so long.”

Cloud had his head halfway through his sweater, wrestling with it like some knitted octopus. Managing to wrangle himself free, he tossed it on top of the pile of sodden leather and wool he’d made next to the laundry basket on the floor. Flecks of mud dotted his forehead, and his usually lofty hair was wilted and heavy. With his shirt off she could see the dark sunburn spread over his shoulders and down his back, his nose and cheeks flushed.

“I almost didn’t make it.” He bent down to pull at the laces of his boots, kicking one off and then the other. “There was a landslide near Healen. The pass up there is closed.” By the looks of Fenrir he had driven _through_ a mudslide. She wouldn’t have put it past him. He was soaked down to his socks, the fabric of his pantlegs rustling as he rummaged through the motorcycle’s storage compartments. “I brought you something.”

He handed her a small box double-wrapped in a plastic bag. He was so close she could smell the fresh scent of the rain coming off him.

“ _Bancha_ tea! Thank you!”

“And this too.”

Her eyes went wide as she weighted the frozen parcel in her hands. She resisted the urge to place it to her own roasted cheek. “Meat?”

“Venison. One of my customers gave it to me as a thanks. Said he’s got pounds of it in his freezer.” Tifa’s mouth began to water, fantasizing potatoes, onions, rosemary. They mostly got their animal protein from chicken, fish, and sometimes pork, but red meat was another hot-ticket item usually reserved for special occasions. Fresh venison would be a real treat.

“Hmm. Maybe you should pick up hunting.”

“I could. I’m not too bad with a rifle.” He fumbled with his belt buckle.

Tifa moved to place the meat and the tea on top of the washing machine. Her slender fingers grasped the waistline of his pants. “Here. Let me help you with that.”

A playful smile touched her lips, even when he covered her mouth with his own. His arms wrapped themselves around her, closing the gap between them. Deftly and with efficiency she undid the buttons, her hands manipulating their way past his zipper. A silent shout of triumph, as a previously dormant part of him grew to meet her. She kissed him with fervor, running her tongue over his bottom lip, and he exhaled the air he’d been holding, stepping out of his trousers as they fell about his ankles. Standing in nothing but his underwear, goosebumps rippled along his cherried skin; initially cool to the touch, the heat from his sunburn rose up to the surface under her hands.

Cloud chuckled. “Miss me?”

“Didn’t even know you were gone.” Tifa rocked her hips into the tent at the front of his boxers, and felt his fingertips dig into her waist, hugging her to him.

A different, exquisite heat had begun to collect low in her belly, and she was suddenly too hot, wearing too many clothes, her own burns incited and inflamed. She looped one arm around the back of his neck, her other hand cupped around the center of his need. Cloud groaned, and he broke their kiss long enough to fold his arms under her legs, lifting her up and onto the washer. Tifa laughed, almost a yelp as her backside touched the frozen venison behind her. His lips strayed over her jawline, wandered down her throat. Hands roamed, pawed, as more articles of clothing were discarded onto the garage floor. Her nipples tightened away from the cold, and she sighed when Cloud took one in his mouth, warmed it with his breath.

They stopped speaking, instead reverting to a language just the two of them spoke. A language learned piecemeal, over several years, until it became as easy as breathing. Talking without words, communicating by feel and taste. Cloud’s mouth traveled further south, and she arched, levitating her hips so he could pull at her pants, suddenly separated when he withdrew to strip her from the waist down. When his mouth returned, he kissed her deeply, their tongues dancing, vying for dominance. His palms went to the inside of her thighs, gently prying them apart, inserting himself between them. Her position atop the washing machine offered him a prime view of areas to which only he was allowed access, and his mouth began to wander again, lower, lower. He pressed his nose against dampened cotton, inhaled fully.

Tifa gasped as her panties were removed, her mind devoid of coherent thought, filled only with the sensation of his tongue sliding up her sleek cleft. Lapping, sucking greedily, he worked her to a frenzy, stoking the fire until the heat had diffused throughout her body, into her bones. She could feel her inner muscles start to spasm, bucking her hips into his face, toes curled by his ears, fingers tangled in his wet hair.

“Oh God, _Cloud_!” He continued to drink from her as the waves of her climax subsided, and she fell back onto her elbows, depleted. Cloud straightened his back, licking his lips, looking smug.

“Shall we continue this elsewhere?” He held his hand out to her, helped her to stand. The concrete was like ice on the soles of her bare feet, and it felt wonderful. They scampered naked through the house, and Tifa put the meat in the freezer on their way upstairs. As much as she missed the kids, she thought, it was nice having the house all to themselves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: the following chapter contains graphic depictions of rape and sexual violence, and may be triggering for some people. Please read at your own discretion.

Tifa leaned in, putting her face close to the glass. The yellow liquid inside sloshed as she swirled its contents with a wooden spoon, replacing the lid on top of the crock. She pursed her lips and moved on to the next jar, taking note of the layer of foam that had gathered at the top of each. One more day would do it. Then the mash could be filtered out, and the resulting solution left to sit for several weeks.

Over the years since Meteorfall, through countless batches, some better than others, she had perfected the art of winemaking. The amount of honey she added, the time spent fermenting and how long she let it age all depended on the fruits she was using. Lucky to have a supplier who was able to obtain exotic fruit from overseas, it set her business apart from others in the city and from the well-established wineries in the North Corel area, and her wines had started to develop a reputation in Edge. Her customers didn’t have high expectations when it came to booze, so long as it had the desired effect—the traditional lure of alcohol wasn’t the drink itself but the experience it brought, that easy numbness, almost like love—but she enjoyed playing _sommelier_ , and her regulars reaped the rewards of her creativity. The bar rotated what was available based on where Cloud’s deliveries took him and what fruits he could get. This newest batch was made from mangoes she’d bought in Costa del Sol.

Tifa stretched on the balls of her feet, and allowed herself a brief moment of complacency. This step was the most time-consuming, since the must required stirring every few hours for the first few days, but also the most important, and it helped not to have as many distractions while she worked. The children were coming back with Barret tomorrow, and then the holiday would truly be over.

They may not have been at the beach anymore, but she and Cloud had made the most of the rest of the week by themselves, stealing time between deliveries and when the bar was closed. They had made love in almost every room in the house, laying claim to the garage, the living room, the shower, the bar. Thinking about it made her whole body tingle down to her toes.

For the first time in a while, Tifa’s heart felt light. It didn’t feel like they were pretending anymore—they were a real family. Cloud came home every night; multi-day excursions to Wutai or the Western Continent were preplanned, structured, predictable. He brought them gifts from his deliveries often, his affection manifested by boxes of her favorite tea and toys for the kids. They took Sundays off, spent the day together, just how she’d wished for, before Cloud had fled. The mountain of her guilt, which she’d carried for so long, had been left behind, faded to a distant cordillera in the landscape of her past, where it belonged. It existed still, another internal scar among many, but she had found that accepting her culpability and acknowledging the part it had played in creating who she was now bestowed more value on what she had, made her life all the more sweet. Contrasted against her shame, she could fully appreciate everything that had been given to her. Spiritually, she felt wealthy.

Inside the narrow room where they stored dry goods, she heard the front door of the restaurant open and shut. Hastily she stifled the reflexive alarm it inspired—it was a still couple hours until she let customers in, and the door was safely locked. The only other people besides herself with a key were Cloud and Barret.

The barroom was as she had left it, chairs stacked on tables, blinds partially open. The doorknob held fast when she tried to turn it, latched securely in place. The music station she’d tuned to on the radio had switched to a talk show, and she turned it off. She stared at the front door again, eyebrows creased in a confused frown.

_Must have been the radio._

Behind the bar, she evaluated the limited assortment of bottles lined along the mantle. Although her main draw was homebrewed wine and beer, she kept a small amount of hard liquor stocked. She took a piece of paper from the pocket of her apron, added vodka to the list. Movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention to the staircase on her right, and she caught the back of Cloud’s figure as he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Cloud?” He was early. She hadn’t heard Fenrir pull into the garage—had something happened on the road? It would explain why he came in through the front door.

By the time she reached the kitchen he was gone. She hurried towards the garage, her pulse picking up, only to find it likewise empty, the overhead door closed. Her senses on high alert, Tifa paused in the short hall between the garage and the kitchen.

“Cloud?” Again she got no reply. The house was calm and still. She opened the door to the pantry, took a step to peek inside, just to be sure.

She jumped when she felt his arm snake itself around her waist.

“Ah! You scared me!” His lips pressed into the side of her neck, and his other hand grabbed hers where it rested on the doorframe. “What are you doing home so early? What happened to Fenrir?”

He ignored her, pushing her further into the walk-in pantry. The door swung slowly shut behind them, submerging them both in thick shadows. Smoothly, he brought her right hand down from the doorway to her back, his fingers fastened tightly around her wrist. He continued to advance them forward until she was against the shelves, faced by bags of rice and boxes of pasta. He nibbled on her shoulder. In the enclosed space her nose picked up the unformed smell of mold.

“Ew, Cloud you stink.” A strange growl gurgled past her ear, feral; his left hand slithered below her sweater, past her leggings. She tried to readjust her stance, and he wedged his knee between her legs so hard it threw her off balance. “Hey! Too rough.”

In response, he twisted her right arm up at an uncomfortable angle, pinching her shoulder blades and pitching her into the shelving.

“Let go of me, that hurts!”

Instead of letting go, his left foot planted in front of hers, his thigh lodged under her knee, effectively keeping her legs apart. Clumsily he snatched at her leggings, yanking them down just enough to display her rear, scraping to get her panties out the of the way.

“Cloud, stop!” She tried to push up with her free hand, but it merely put more pressure on her right shoulder, his grip vice-like, unrelenting. The air flew from her lungs in a panic. He had her in a solid hold, positioning her with her chest down and her bottom out. She needed her left arm on the shelf to prevent herself from falling, almost all of her weight propped onto her right leg. “Cloud, please! Stop!”

There was no warning. Tifa cried out as his erection forced its way inside her. Without preparation her tissues resisted the intrusion, and she could feel her flesh tear. He didn’t stop. He didn’t wait, immediately setting a vehement pace, hammering into her backside. The pain was astonishing, taking her breath away; her face began to burn, her sinuses clogged, and she realized she was crying, teeth clenched in opposition to her own screams.

He was thrusting with unnecessary ferocity. She made the mistake of moving her hand, to shift in an attempt to stabilize her hips against his strikes, and as he pounded into her she slipped, tumbling forward. Even as her momentum pulled her down he did not loosen his grip, and she felt her arm give way from its socket, a dazzling white agony flashing through her shoulder all the way to her spine. The leverage released in her joint; he finally surrendered her arm, welding his fingers into her sides, holding her fixed, hinged at the waist. Tifa could feel herself blacking out, grounded only by his member ramming against her cervix. The blood was rushing past her ears, her brain flooded, until the sound of his laughing pierced her psyche.

Not Cloud’s laughter. Not his.

It was many years since she’d heard it last, but she would always remember it. A deep bark, incisive, as it reverberated across ancient glass high above her head, in a dead city, over a dead body.

He swelled inside her, unloading himself with one final shove. He laughed again as he dispatched her from him, and her legs gave out, boneless. Wilted, in a heap on the floor, Tifa’s face was suddenly illuminated, and when she opened her eyes the last thing she saw was long, silken hair, longer than her own, haloed silver in the light from the hallway.

-:-

She awoke to the pain in her shoulder, pulsating down her arm. The pinky and ring fingers on her right hand were completely numb. Her muscles shrieked when she rolled over, her forehead flattened to the chilled floorboards.

_You have to get up._

Somewhere in her mind the voice of reason asserted itself. She had dislocated her arm once before in a fight, in Midgar. It needed to be reset as soon as possible. The longer she waited the stiffer it would become, the more difficult it would be to reduce.

_You have to get up._

She wanted nothing to do with it. Just the idea of getting to her feet, of walking any amount of distance, tapped her energy. The pantry door had shut again, and the darkness soothed her eyes, enveloped her like a hug. Her inner thighs were stuck together, glued by the wetness that leaked from her abused sex, and her head throbbed. She would have been content to lay there indefinitely, were it not for that blasted voice. No one was coming to help her; she was on her own.

To stand was an almost insurmountable task, complicated by her leggings scrunched around her knees, panties disordered. Her legs wobbled, unreliable, infirm. Her arm had to be supported, unable to tolerate even its own weight. When she stood up her head spun, and she leaned back into the shelves to catch her breath. She labored with pulling her leggings up one-handed, to cover raw, tender skin.

The kitchen greeted her with silence, and an insidious fear snuck up on her, cat-like: what if he was still in the house? She couldn’t be sure if Cloud was still ensnared in whatever trance that had compelled him to assault her. Tifa had relegated her memories of similar situations to an overlooked, moth-eaten box in her subconscious, filled with countless other unpleasant memories—she hardly ever thought about the time when he had handed the black materia over to Sephiroth, or when he beat Aerith in the Temple of the Ancients. That just wasn’t who he was.

She wanted to run. She had to get to the hospital. The rusted pick-up truck Barret had left them was parked around the block, but she couldn’t drive a stick-shift with a dislocated shoulder. She moved cautiously into the bar, scanning the staircase and the door. Outside, the rain had petered to a gauzy mist, the room somber in the late afternoon. She could see people passing by on the sidewalk through the slats in the blinds.

She had to prop her bad arm on the counter as she reached for the telephone. Her trembling made dialing trickier than usual.

“Emergency Services, do you need assistance?”

“Um, hello, I need an ambulance.”

“Are you hurt?”

She told the man on the other end about her arm, gave him her address. After he’d hung up, she slumped to the floor, powerless to stay upright anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is inspired by the movie Rosemary's Baby (starring Mia Farrow and directed by Roman Polanski). Poor Tifa. It was hard figuring out a way for her to be put in such a vulnerable spot, she's very different than Rosemary. Unfortunately for her and Cloud, things are going to get worse before they get better. Thanks to all you wonderful reviewers!


	3. Chapter 3

The lights were on. The cab driver turned round to peer at her, his thick eyebrows like two caterpillars trying to kiss on his face.

“This is it, right?”

Tifa hesitated, said nothing, her good hand stilled on the door handle, staring at the slivers of light seeping through the blinds onto the street. She tried to swallow the mass that had formed in her throat on the ride over, but it wouldn’t budge. The taxi didn’t wait until she was inside, pulling away almost as soon as she had shuffled out of the vehicle, leaving her stranded on the sidewalk, trapped between her physical need to be out of the cold and the apprehension of what awaited her inside.

Turning the key in the lock demanded deliberate care; the muscle relaxers they’d given her in the emergency department dulled her faculties, filled her cells with lead. Wedged under her armpit was a white paper bag, a prescription bottle with more pain medicine.

It was a relief to find the bar vacant as she entered it, however short-lived the feeling. The sound of footfalls tramping across the floor above made her body tense, in spite of the medication.

“Tifa?” Cloud appeared in the stairwell. “Where have you been?” She saw his eyes travel from her face to her arm, bolstered by a sling. Scattered drops of blood ruined the worn cable-knit sweater she’d put on that morning, let from a gash on her brow, from a blow she didn’t recall taking. “What happened?”

He was coming at her too fast, and impulsively she withdrew, her retreat halted by the wall against her back.

“Stay away from me.”

He didn’t listen, pressed closer. “What happened to you?”

“I said stay away!”

Tifa hadn’t been able to feel anything for several hours, stunned, insensate. Confronted by his steady advance, the fear she felt now drilled cleanly through her chest. Things were beginning to click into place, as she registered the expression on his face, the mark of concern in his beautiful blue eyes. His steps slowed, coming to a stand-still mere feet from her.

“What happened? I got home and you were gone. You left your cell on the bar.” He gave her another cursory once-over. “Who did this to you?”

“You don’t remember.” More than a statement, she should have been relieved he had recovered his sensibilities. Maybe it was for the best he didn’t remember.

“Remember what?”

“You…”

“Tifa—” He reached out to her and she recoiled, wincing as the abrupt movement jarred her arm.

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ” She could feel heat climbing from her neck into her face. “It was you, Cloud. You did this.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve been on deliveries all day.”

“You came home after lunch and you…” She couldn’t even say it; the rancid truth of it was like poison in her mouth. “You attacked me.”

Cloud didn’t respond right away, his face withered by confusion and dismay.

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Tifa, I swear I didn’t.”

“I was there, Cloud. I remember it very well.” Bitterness seeped from her words without her consent. The thick shroud that had protected her, woven from a combination of dissociation and chemically-induced apathy, was falling away, ruptured by that initial fear, and the influx of emotions that followed all at once smothered her, so many as to be indistinguishable from each other. “Please, I…I just want to go upstairs,” she said quietly.

The only thing she wanted at that moment was a hot shower, to scour her skin until all traces of this day had been washed clean.

He hovered at arm’s length, his eyes unfocused, as he receded into himself. In the past she would have fought him on it, would have prevented him from disengaging from her into the tortuous crypts of his own mind. Now she could only watch, impassively, as the bewilderment in his face melted into stoicism; his cheeks still tinged slightly pink from a vacation that had taken place ages ago, in a different life altogether. He didn’t try to stop her as she snuck her way around him and escaped up the stairs.

Under the harsh light of the bathroom she caught her reflection for the first time, witnessed the total extent of the damage. The cut on her forehead wasn’t deep enough to require stitches, the skin around it angry, raised, red. Purple bruises splotched her hips like finger paint. Her underwear, the fabric petrified with dried blood, was unsalvageable. She lost track of time in the shower, didn’t notice until the scalding water began to turn tepid. Yet no matter how much soap she lathered or how hard she scrubbed the virulent memory of his touch endured, inscribed into the contusions on her womanhood.

Cloud was waiting for her in their bedroom, hunched on edge of the bed with his forearms propped on his knees. She was a bit surprised to find him there; she had half-expected him to run away. She wasn’t sure which choice she desired more.

“Tifa…” He got to his feet, hands extended, as if to touch her. Instead he froze impotently in the middle of the room, deterred by her body’s reflexive response to his movements, scarcely able to contain the grief in his voice. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did, it wasn’t…”

“Cloud—” She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that she understood, to revert to her customary role as the supportive caregiver, but she simply did not have the strength. Every part of her hurt. “I want to be alone right now.”

She thought he would fight her on it, but he only nodded, without argument, gaze downcast, and she stepped aside to allow him to pass her, holding the space between them. She listened to the sound of his bootsteps going down the hall, fading down the stairs. She walked over to the dresser, took two pills from the prescription bottle in the white paper bag. She wasn’t sure how early or late at night it was; she didn’t care. Finally in bed, she waited impatiently for the pills to kick in, too tired even to cry.

-:-

Tifa woke in a cold sweat, alone in the bed, rattled from a dream she couldn’t remember. People yelling, the heat of fire on her flesh; bleary images, of fractured architecture and crimson rain flowing into the gutters in the street as she ran, decayed under the light of midday.

Noises drifted through her door. Metal clinking against ceramic, chairs scratching her freshly waxed floors, children giggling. Momentarily forgetting her injury, she scrambled to check the time on her phone on the bedside table, and her shoulder bellowed in protest. 12:36. Even on weekends, when the bar stayed open until midnight and she didn’t retire until one or two in the morning, she’d wake up earlier than this. Blaming the medicine, she hustled as best she could out of bed. Her arm was fixed firmly to her side, almost immobile, as if someone had poured cement into her joint overnight, and she struggled to get dressed.

Her stride lagged the closer she got to the kitchenette at the other end of the hall. She could hear Barret’s rich baritone, chastising Marlene for talking with food in her mouth. She knew Cloud was there without needing to hear his voice—the children addressed him amidst their constant chatter, carrying on without waiting for his reply.

“Tifa!” Marlene bounced off her chair mid-bite, accosting her as she wavered in the doorway. Rapidly encroaching on double-digits, Marlene had begun ‘sprouting like a weed’, as the old-timers liked to say. Her eyes were level with Tifa’s arm where it rested beneath her bosom. “What happened? Did you get in a fight?”

Tifa coerced herself into smiling, for their sakes. “No, I…tripped and fell down the stairs. Clumsy, huh?”

Ever astute, Marlene frowned. “You’re the least clumsy person I know!”

Tifa fought the minor itch to shrug her off, disgusted by her own repulsion to Marlene's touch. It didn’t have anything to do with Marlene. She didn’t want to be touched at all, by anyone. Her disgust in herself lingered even as the girl rushed back to her seat to finish her lunch. Tifa went over to plant a kiss on the top of Denzel’s head, noting the rosy hue of his scalp, before taking the open seat beside him and Barret. Cloud sat across from her, and she took every effort not to look at him, steadfast in her unwillingness to acknowledge his apparent unease. Her anxiety trailed behind her and settled oppressively over the table. Marlene, seemingly oblivious, jabbered on about going back to school, eager to show off her meager tan to her friends, who would no doubt be jealous that she looked just like the women in their favorite pop magazines.

Whatever good mood Barret had been in that morning vanished as soon as he saw Tifa. His glare alternated between her and Cloud, back and forth—she could practically hear his unspoken diatribe as he tried to work out the drastic change in their demeanors. Loveably hot-headed as he was, Barret wasn’t stupid. They’d known one another long enough to learn each other’s idiosyncrasies; he wouldn’t say anything now, not with the kids around, but it was only a matter of time. It occurred to her that perhaps if she could avoid being alone with him she could somehow avert that dreaded conversation she knew intuitively was coming.

Cloud, for his part, said nothing at all.

As lunch finished, Tifa got up from the table and went to fill the sink with soapy water. “Marlene, Denzel, would you help me clear the dishes, please?”

“Don’t worry ’bout that, Tifa,” said Barret. “Spike can do the dishes.” There was an unspoken threat in there, somewhere, she thought, though she refused to turn around and see it. Cloud sidled up to her, reaching as if to take her hand beneath the water, and she drew back, letting the sponge slip from her fingers and fall to the bottom of the sink.

“Fine, if you insist,” she conceded airily, wiping her hands on a towel. “C’mon you two, let’s unpack your suitcases.”

It was easier than she thought. The kids were still riding the high from their holiday, invigorated by the tropical sun on their skin, and they were more than happy to consume Tifa’s attention so far as she was willing to give it. Temporarily handicapped, she let them help her filter the fruit mash from the wine and transfer it into a carboy, although she had her reservations on how it would turn out, given that it had been neglected for nearly a full twenty-four hours. She did their laundry, and made sure each had a bath.

By early evening, Barret had grown visibly more irritated, the large artery in his neck ticking an agitated beat. She guessed he had cornered Cloud at some point to extract an explanation—she knew he hadn’t gotten one, reassured by the tantrum that never came. Before she knew it the sun was setting. The ache in her shoulder had intensified as the hours passed, and she was tempted to take another pill, the right side of her torso rigid and confining. The mental task of evading any kind of direct confrontation had left her depleted.

Sandwiched next to Marlene and Denzel as they watched a movie running on the television, she fought to keep her eyes open; even with them closed she could sense Barret’s stare from the other end of the couch. Apart from them, Cloud meditated over his maps at the kitchen table. If she fell asleep here, he would try to carry her to bed, and just the thought made her skin ripple. She stood up, abruptly, swaying on her feet.

“Are you okay, Tifa?” asked Denzel.

“Yes, I’m just gonna go lay down. Try not to go to bed too late, you guys have school tomorrow.” Their lackluster assents were feeble comforts as she hurried to her bedroom.  
Sleep came quickly, merciful, profound. She didn’t hear when Cloud followed sometime later, impeded by the door, closed and locked.

-:-

The next morning, the house was blissfully quiet. She lay in bed for a few minutes, heartened by the muted sounds of life persevering outside, and for a moment she let her body relax. A pale sun grappled its way through the window, undermined by the stubborn cloud cover. Someone had told her once, a customer some years back, that the perpetual overcast was caused by cold wet air coming down from the northern sea and being trapped by the mountains to the south. They were well into November, and the city would have to wait until May for the heat of summer to break up the fog.

She’d slept in again, but it was still early enough to make a productive day of it. She showered, and dressed. She made Marlene’s bed and tidied the random toys and articles of clothing strewn on the floor. Denzel’s bed had already been made, his side immaculate, as usual. She couldn’t hear anyone downstairs, and she assumed that Cloud had left for the day, his office unoccupied. The cot Barret had slept on, usually kept in storage since Cloud had officially moved into her room, had its mattress rolled up, the used sheets folded on top. It saddened her that Barret had gone without saying goodbye, though the feeling was nullified by the consolation that her plan had worked.

Halfway down the steps she stopped, caught off guard by the large shape seated at the bar, bags by his ankles.

“Mornin’, Tif.”

“Barret! You’re still here. I thought you’d gone back to North Corel by now.” She went behind the bar to get herself a cup of coffee from the percolator.

“Boat from Junon don’t leave ‘til tonight. I got some time.”

“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?” It would take him a few hours just to get to Junon. If he loitered too long he’d miss the boat for sure, and would have to stay another night. She prayed he wasn’t planning on staying. She held the coffee pot up with her good arm, gesturing to his half-empty mug. “Want a refill?”

“Nah, this is my third.” He sighed, and folded the newspaper he’d been reading on the counter. “You gonna tell me what happened? Or do I gotta move back in wit’cha?”

“Barret…”

“I’m serious. I ain’t leavin’ ‘til I get an answer. You guys couldn’t keep your hands off each other not four days ago, and now you won’t let him near ya. You won’t even look at him. Y’think I didn’t notice Cloud sleepin’ on the couch this mornin’?” He leaned in slightly, his eyes hard. “Did _he_ do this?”

Tifa ducked her head, cowering behind her dark hair. “N-no,” she murmured. “Of course not.” There was no way she could tell Barret the truth—he’d murder Cloud as sure as the moon drove the tides. “I already told you, I fell down the stairs. I was carrying a box and missed my step. Probably should have let go of it, but what can you do. Hindsight is 20-20, you know.” Awkward and under-confident when it came to outright lying, she’d never really had a penchant for it, yet the lies strolled forth readily, competently.

Barret did not take his eyes off her, and Tifa forced herself to raise her head, to look him straight-on. She conjured up a shy smile, for emphasis.

“You’re right. We are fighting. But it’s just a silly argument, we’ll get past it.” She patted his arm lightly. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. _I’ll_ be fine.”

“Hmph.” He glanced down at his prosthesis, clearly unconvinced. She wasn’t particularly convinced either, given the situation.

“Want something to eat for the road? Here, let me make you something.” Leaving him no time to argue, she bolted into the back kitchen. He accepted the sandwich with reluctance, the suspicion painted in heavy brushstrokes across his forehead. He’d asked for an answer, and he’d gotten one. After mulling it over, he must have realized it was the only answer she was going to give, and he rose from the stool.

“You’ll call, right? If y’need anythin’?”

“Of course! Give us a ring when you get to North Corel, let us know you got there okay.”

“Right. Bye, Tif.”

Tifa shut the door behind him, rested her back against the cool wood. Alone at last.


	4. Chapter 4

“Alright, Ruiz. Time’s up.”

The old man’s glare was resentful. “Aw c’mon, the night’s still young.” He handled the glass between grimy fingers, nails browned by tobacco stains. “I haven’t even finished my drink yet.”

Tifa began plucking the empty dishware in front of him, constructing a precarious tower she could carry with one hand. “Well finish up. It’s closing time.”

“Too early, if you ask me,” he slurred. “You’re shuttin’ down right when the people are ready to start some serious drinking.”

Tifa just shook her head. She regarded his sallow skin, his eyes tinted faintly yellow, the small specks of food trapped in the thicket of his bedraggled beard. They participated in this dialogue at least weekly. If she’d allowed it, Ruiz would have made himself a permanent fixture at the bar, like the worn vinyl upholstery or the hanging plants. Whenever he showed up he’d claim a stool as if it was included in the price of the drink, stuck to it until she made him clear out. He carried with him an odor of dereliction that some other customers found off-putting. Tifa didn’t really mind, having lived in the slums. She didn’t know what he did for a living, as he never spoke much about his personal life, but he always had gil to pay for his drinks, and he never caused any trouble. So long as he got his whiskey, he kept to himself.

He eyed her arm in its sling, much in the way Barret had done not a week before, as he angled the last of the whiskey to his lips. Downing the rest of the glass, he pushed it toward her along the bartop. “Alright, babe. Take care of yourself.”

“You too. See you later, Ruiz.” Locking the door behind him, she watched his shuffling figure vanish down the street, to resume his marathon elsewhere.

The routines of closing each night had become second-nature, habitual, almost meditative. She could have performed these duties in her sleep, had nearly done so on more than one occasion, although she didn’t feel all that tired, currently, despite the late hour.

In the back kitchen, her hands had gone ashen and wrinkled. On the drying rack next to the sink a company of mugs and pans, plates and pots dutifully filed at attention, weeping onto the cloth underneath as if in sympathy for their sacrifice. Tifa stared down at them with displeasure. Powerful as they were, they were not what one would call attractive hands—in another life, pampered by leisure and luxury, they may have been pretty, with smooth porcelain skin and slim, tapered fingers. Now under the crude white light of the kitchen, they appeared to her as an old woman’s hands, gnarled, decrepit, carrying a lifetime’s worth of scars.

She rinsed a spoon under the tap, dried it with the bar cloth she held in her other hand, hammocked across her waist.

Everything felt odd. Off-tinted, distorted, like looking through a magnifying glass, the center of the image compacted and hyperfocused, its periphery distorted and blurry. The days were uneventful. When she lay down at night, she couldn’t bring up the details to differentiate them; her customers’ faces, their relentless small talk, things the kids had said or done, all of it churning in a tumultuous haze, punctuated by spontaneous, sporadic flashbacks, her mind captured at random by the memory of her legs being spread apart, provoked by the smell of the bags of rice and grain in the pantry. That malicious laughter, triggered by cheering tipplers in the bar.

She hadn’t seen much of Cloud, the last few days. He was making it easier to avoid him. At first he had tried to confront her about what happened, wanted her, in his selfish confusion, to reconstruct it for him, because he had no idea, he _swore_ , none. But she never felt up to it, not yet able to unravel it with words. She wanted to crawl into bed and put her head under the covers and sleep for several years—she understood Vincent better now, very much the monk, shutting himself up in a cave. She could commiserate with the compulsion to hide yourself away, to shirk the weight of your life in pursuit of isolation, not because you think you’re dying, but precisely because you’re not. You eschew your life, in exchange for peace.

But Vincent didn’t have kids. Lucky him.

The rumble of Fenrir’s engine grew loud from the road, and the cutlery in the drying rack chittered excitedly. He had made a recent point to be out of the house before she got up, coming home later and later, demoralized, inflated with stale apologies. She was sick of hearing him apologize. Sorry. Sorry. He was always sorry. The whole damn world was sorry.

If pressed, she might have admitted that she was being somewhat unjust. How much should he be held responsible for the behavior committed beyond his control—did the loss of control over his own body make the act any less repugnant? It wasn’t even the assault, so much as the anger behind it; the wrath channeled neurologically into his fingers, screwing around her wrist, the white hatred funneled into every thrust—it put to question what really lurked inside him, which scruples rang true in his soul. Even had she imagined being the target of his rage, she could not have foreseen its effect, the fatalities.

She wondered if that might be worse, in a way, to be the person capable of such cruelty, to wake up each morning with that malevolent potential—and if it was, did that devalue her own pain, her experience as the victim? She found a dense kernel of outrage, a hardy spore resting at the bottom of a sunless ocean, took hold of it; her anger like an old friend, familiar and supportive. You could survive by anger, she knew. You could subsist for years off nothing but anger.

_Immolated._

She considered going upstairs, thought better of it as she tallied the number of things that still needed to be done to close the bar. At least from her position at the sink she would have her back to him, would not have to look him in the face.

He never looked at her with anything other than sorrow and regret anymore.

Her pulse stammered as the sounds of his arrival drew closer—they terminated in the kitchen, behind her, and she picked out a fork from the murky water.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Once again like strangers, living separate lives under the same roof.

“How was your night?”

“Fine.”

“The kids already in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Need any help?”

“No thanks.”

The running faucet flushed out the intruding pause. A spot on the fork became her sole ambition, an intractable blemish she was determined to remove.

“Tifa.” He came up beside her, and, feeling brave, put a hand on her shoulder. “Can we talk?”

The fork clinked to the floor. “Dammit!” She cringed from him, retrieved the fork, throwing it with dramatic indignation into the sink. “I’m busy.”

“Please? We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.” Evasive, wild-eyed, she moved away to cinch the trash bag closed, toppled the plastic bin, hoisted the bag out. He didn’t speak as she stomped past the pantry into the garage.

Chucking the garbage into the dumpster in the alley, she turned back towards the house, and found him idling by the door leading inside; like a child, timid, shifting uncomfortably from one heel to the other.

“Get out of my way please.”

“Not until you talk to me.”

“I _said_ I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have to,” he said, sounding desperate. “I can’t live like this anymore.”

The spite flew like acid from her tongue. “Then leave! I know you want to.”

“That’s not true…”

“Well, maybe you should!”

Cloud stared at her, struck, displaying a level of uncertainty she hadn’t seen in years.

“You know I wouldn’t intentionally hurt you.”

“I _don’t_ know that, Cloud,” retorted Tifa. “You did hurt me! God, what if the _children_ had been home?” She couldn’t bear the thought of them witnessing such a depraved act, or, Heaven forbid, having his madness turned on them. Her motherly instincts bristled. “I don’t know if I can trust you right now.”

“I’d _never_ hurt the kids.”

“Not on purpose, maybe,” she agreed. “But when you’re not in control—I can’t take that chance.”

She saw his eyes dim, like candles being blown out one by one, a dismantling.

“Do you…want me to leave?” he asked, after a moment.

“Maybe that would be best. I need some space.”

He opened his mouth, shut it, pressed his lips together in a hard line. The last candle sputtered and went out. There was a seismic motion, a tearing, shearing noise between her lungs.

“What about the kids?”

“I’ll think of something to tell them.”

He coughed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, subdued. “I’ll go in the morning, then?”

Tifa nodded. “Thank you.” He reeled as if she had slugged him, and backtracked into the house without another word. She stayed put, as her view of his back became obstructed by the closing door, suddenly aware of the freezing wind that penetrated through the thin white cotton of the long-sleeved shirt under her vest.

She didn’t immediately go back inside, her sneakers rooted into the concrete. Part of her wanted to run in after him, to take back the thoughts she’d set free into the world. But once released they could not be repealed or contained, and as much as she wanted to hold him, to be held by him, her body would not make that leap across the gulf she had created. The space she had asked for.

When Tifa finally returned to her place at the sink, the cold hounded her. Insidious, it pervaded the kitchen, thieving through the bar, alighting like dust on the walls and between the cracks in the plaster. By the time she was done, it had established itself resolutely in the house.

-:-

She blinked, suddenly able to see. Tifa faltered mid-step, statue-still, like a burglar, caught in the beam of a policeman’s flashlight. The lights above her tinkled, amused, taunting her with their ambivalence. They waited a second, then went out again.

She sighed. They’d been warned against this, the frequent power outages, as the city migrated away from mako in favor of other energy sources. A few oil wells had been discovered on the Western Continent, and on some of the smaller Wutaian islands further southwest, but the process of refining it and shipping it, of developing engines and generators that could utilize it, large enough to supply neighborhoods and towns, was taking more time than anyone had predicted. Politicians yarned the typical platitudes, mollifying speeches about community, cooperation and prospective abundance; the rare public appearance, at the opening of a new department store, or the expansion of the automotive factory.

She knew Reeve was doing his best. Everyone was. It all just seemed so unstable. No one could say how long those oil wells would last, what the alternative would be if and when they dried up. More delusive calculations—the numbers changed depending on who you asked. Barret was unfoundedly optimistic: oil was the way of the future. He’d always had a tendency to put the cart before the chocobo, so to speak.

From the cabinet below the sink she brought out an oil lamp, held it up, trying to gauge the amount of fuel it had left, a challenge in the near complete blackness of the kitchenette. In the dark, her hand ferreted blindly in the junk drawer for a book of matches.

“Shit.”

She could picture them, stowed on the shelf under the till, amidst pens and rubber bands, with the firecracker she’d confiscated off Denzel last weekend. Ifrit knew where he got it; she suspected his friends from the ruins. They were a bad influence, in her opinion, but they had been a significant part of Denzel’s life before she’d met him, and Tifa felt unqualified to tell him which friends he could and could not hang out with.

Navigating the hallway, she took care down the steps, one hand on the bannister. Two weeks since her trip to the ER and only one day out of the sling, the last thing she needed was to _actually_ fall down the stairs, break something else. Safely at the bottom of the staircase, she maneuvered more assuredly around the bar. As she reached the register, in a generous show of good sportsmanship, the lights flickered back on. Tifa rotated her arm experimentally. The emergency physician had advised her to arrange a follow-up appointment before going home, and she hadn’t. She knew the drill. Gentle stretches each day, no lifting anything greater than five kilos for another month. The glass of the oil lamp glimmered where she placed it on the counter, reflecting the glow from the overhead lights, luminescent without having been lit. She stared at the lamp, transfixed; reclusive in memory, sitting next to it, huddled by its uplifting brightness.

She was on the sofa, nestled with her feet tucked underneath her. By the tawny light of the oil lamp she was attempting to mend one of Denzel’s shirts. He’d gone off with some other boys after school without changing out of his dress clothes, coming back exuberant and filthy, several buttons missing, one short sleeve close to shorn off; abashed but unperturbed by the lecture she’d given him—school clothes were for school; they didn’t have very many nice things, it wouldn’t do to ruin what they did have for no reason—or the loss of dessert that evening. The punishment fit the crime, evidently. She tried to be thankful for his vigor, glad to be able to see a side of Denzel’s personality that months earlier had been transfigured by his illness.

It was raining, big, fat drops that bashed themselves against the window pane. The storm had knocked out the power completely. Splashes of lightning occasionally streaked through the window—instead of evicting the shadows, it gave them shape, made them larger, more formidable. The lamp was a beacon, shining out against the night, her only weapon.

“You’re going to hurt your eyes, doing that in the dark.”

She didn’t look up, carefully puncturing the fabric with the needle. “What do you think they did before electricity, hmm?”

“They did stuff like that during the day.” At this she laughed, glancing at Cloud at the other end of the sofa.

“Okay, fair enough. This has to get done tonight though, so it can go in the wash tomorrow.” In truth she could have finished in the morning, but she needed an excuse, wanted a pretense to stay, to relish in his company. She wanted to make up for lost time. Even when the power went out, neither had moved from the couch, chitchatting about this or that, often falling into companionable silence, interrupted by manic outbursts from the storm outside.

As far as she was concerned, the matter of his desertion was a closed one. They’d discussed it, his leaving, after their friends had gone back to their respective homes, the house emptied and still unbearably tense. She heard his explanation with patience, an almost indecent grace. _Sorry_ again, for abandoning them, for shutting her out; not always articulated with ease or eloquence, but she had understood his sincerity, knew it like a book she’d read time and again, spine scarred from having been broken over and over.

Tifa squinted down at her handiwork, turning the shirt over, gently tugging on the sleeve. She grinned, pleased with herself.

“There! Good as new. At least I think it is. It’ll have to do, in any case.”

Cloud returned her smile. The room exploded in white light, quaked a few seconds later. Tifa stretched her legs out and yawned.

“All right. I’m off to bed.” When he didn’t respond she got up, linked her fingers together with her arms forward, pushed against an invisible obstacle. “Don’t forget to put out the lamp, okay?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Goodnight, Cloud.” She was almost to the door when his voice stopped her.

“Tifa?”

“Hmm?” He was standing, had taken a couple of steps towards her, vacillating, indecisive. “What’s up?”

“I…” He wasn’t looking at her, off to the side, towards the hall, but not really seeing it, locked up in some mental battle. “I don’t think…”

_I don’t think this is working out._

_I don’t think I should live here anymore._

An icy stone began to press itself down in the pit of her stomach. He was leaving again—at least this time he had the decency to tell her first. Give her a chance to talk him out of it. She braced herself.

“I don’t think I thanked you.”

“Oh?” She exhaled, measured and still. “What for?”

Cloud searched her face, as if beseeching her to read his mind. “For…you know, taking me back in.”

“Oh.” She smiled wanly, continued to breathe out the trepidation that had become entwined in her ribcage. “Of course. We’re family, remember?” She started to turn, felt his hand grab hers.

He held on with the ardor of a drowning man, towing her closer to him. “No, I mean…you've always been there. In Sector 7, Mideel…afterwards.”

“I guess I’m a slow learner,” she said wryly. He frowned, the periodic flashes of light giving his expression a severe quality. She squeezed his arm affectionately. “I’m joking! C’mon Cloud, you know I’m joking.”

“I’m being serious.” His arms snaked around her waist, like vines, tough and supple, until she was enfolded, squashed against his sturdy musculature. “Thank you.”

She couldn’t remember ever hugging him like that before. As a general rule Cloud wasn’t a fan of most forms of physical contact. Curt, awkward hugs, sure, but nothing with the same sense of defenselessness, of being wide open. He clutched at her as if she were the only thing keeping him from being sucked up by the gales howling through the window. 

She wrapped her arms under his, hugged him back. “You’re welcome. I’ll always be here for you, Cloud.” He must have been nervous; she could feel his heartbeat thrashing in his chest.

Basking in his closeness, she waited before beginning to withdraw, preemptive, already mourning the hug’s natural conclusion. But he didn’t react, unyielding. Seconds came and went, and as time marched forwards it seemed to her, intoxicatingly sated, immersed in the sound of the rain and the unpresuming scent of clean linen and sweat, that the two of them became more real, substantive; everything before had simply been an illusion. The world undulated and compressed, atoms condensed down into the immutable connection between them, anything else beyond that static and inconsequential.

“I cherish you.”

Were it not for their proximity, she might not have heard him, muffled by the furious rainfall, his voice soft. His words took her by surprise, by how they disarmed her, and she became lost in the words; somehow less than and more than, a reluctant compromise, the olive branch raised in answer to an underlying conflict which had in many ways not been resolved. Her tears seemed contradictory. She dipped her chin, pinched her eyes tight.

It will always be like this, she thought. Some things just couldn’t be forced. She needed to stop asking him to give her what he didn’t have, desiring something that only existed in her own mind. She should have been satisfied with her gratitude, that he’d chosen to come home, that he was alive at all.

He relinquished his hold slightly, still frowning, still grasping her waist. She sniffed, brushed at the tears beaded in the corners of her eyes.

His hand cupped her cheek, tilted her head up until she had no option but to look at him, disoriented by the possessiveness she saw in his face. She wasn’t expecting his mouth, its distracted insistence; amazed by how readily she opened for him, let him back in. It was similar to their first, that same passion and intensity, accentuated by fits of lightning and obdurate winds, but also different. Lacking was the clumsiness, the halting self-consciousness; absent the sunrise’s promise of death. This kiss was an oath. The way his tongue explored her mouth, violated its boundaries, told her that one word was just as good as the other.

She reminisced on that kiss more often these days, to the exclusion of almost everything else, choosing to seek shelter under the cover of memories untainted by fear or destruction. It made the days go by faster, at least for a short time, until she came out of it, recalled all over again the sequence of events that had led up to this point.

She barely felt the lamp in her hand, moving about the room, turning the lights off properly; padding to the staircase, stealing a last appraising look over her shoulder into the shadows. One leg up, then the other; again. She raised her foot, anticipating the next step that never came. The floor dissolved beneath her like spring thaw, her body swinging in a shallow arc towards—nothing. Just a ravenous hole where the stairs should have been. The planet had come off its axis, was spiraling at an alarming speed, the walls rotating. She shut her eyes against it, and was aerosolized up into the tornado. When it dropped her, her bangs were stamped to her temples, and she could hear the reedy soughs of her breath in the dark; sinking as in quicksand, the bannister used to stand, her head spinning. Her voice, calling from the empty hallway.

_Welcome._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this ended up being longer than I was expecting. At one point a whole chunk had to be scrapped and rewritten. Hope it turned out okay and my hopping time periods wasn't too confusing. We'll get to see what Cloud thinks about all this in the next chapter. Thank you again for your reviews! Stay safe everyone!


	5. Chapter 5

He had discovered years ago a defined point at which consciousness blurred. At a specific speed, his thoughts would unfurl into the roiling scenery, marked by the artificial regularity of powerlines along the road. Conifers bent towards the stiff grass like religious supplicants, smeared against the jagged, dusty peaks of the mountains to the north. It used to be easy to find; just getting the tires spinning, to gain any forward motion was to break past the chaotic bramble into delicious white-noise, where the wind rallied over the screaming in his head, and the motorcycle’s engine conquered his thundering heartbeat.

But the point had become displaced, launched along an unattainable trajectory, at a speed he couldn’t reach. Pushing the engineered limits of the machine beneath him, vistas deformed into an amorphous slurry of shadow and color, the canvas ravaged by the sweep of a great, disapproving hand, and Cloud could still hear them.

 _It finally happened. It was only a matter of time. You were bound to hurt someone again sooner or later. What an idiot, thinking_ you _of all people could live a normal life._

So much progress, undone in a single afternoon. He remembered moving back home after defeating Sephiroth a third time—Tifa’s gracious, gratified smiles, and the brazen, almost demanding enthusiasm of the children. Their friends left, and his ragtag family returned to a mangled forgery of what it had been before he’d left them, it slowly became apparent, in small, nearly imperceptible details, that things were not the same. Nothing in her manner had overtly changed. She still doted on him, kept him fed, nourished him with her subtle and unwarranted affection. It took him a while to notice—she never asked anything from him. She didn’t ask him to predict when he’d be home, didn’t ask him to run errands for her or to pick up things she needed even if he could have easily done so on his deliveries. And they never spoke about the future. She didn’t ask him to make plans. It was an unstated rule, a rule even the kids followed.

More than one lesson had been learned in his absence.

She could be mysteriously nonchalant, dismissive even, and her total lack of expectations in terms of household management or parental partnership embarrassed him. He realized then that were he to leave again, she would have moved on without him, having accepted with her love all parts of him, including his cowardice. It came to a head the night of the storm, his anxiety a pitiless whisper, convincing him that in leaving he had distanced himself from her irrevocably. When he hugged her, and she cried, he knew they could no longer skirt that messy edge between platonic and romantic love. He hadn’t wanted to.

His grip on the throttle tightened, and the bike shuddered. He raced headlong into the abyss, paralyzed by a stunning panic—the bottomless sensation of freefalling he felt every morning, waking up alone in a bed that wasn’t his, present in every moment he tried to exist without her.

Cloud didn’t think he had changed that much since being healed of the geostigma, but returning to the church emphasized everything that was different. His perception of the world had changed. He marveled at how he had ever been comfortable there—the large holes in the roof and the dilapidated walls undermined the structural integrity of the building, and it provided hardly any protection against the weather. When he was facing death, he had wrapped himself in his depression and told himself it was what he deserved. But being given his life back, sharing it with Tifa, letting her in, had shown him possibilities he’d barely dared to dream about. Laying on his flattened bedroll on the unforgiving wooden floor coated in dust, suffocated by the potent scent of lilies, he was aware only of the church’s emptiness, how cold it was.

Now cradled firmly in the desolate sheath of winter, the cold gnawed at him constantly. Whizzing through mountain valleys and across sterile plains, it ambushed the patches of bare skin across his nose and cheeks between the layers of his scarf, shredding through the thick leather of his gloves into the tips of his fingers. Indoors, he could never seem to get warm enough, his arms and legs inflexible like those of a corpse entombed in the sheets of snow that had prolapsed down the mountainside. Soon the roads would be nothing more than hard, slick divots cut into the frozen mud, contentious and untrustworthy even with snow tires. Travelling by chocobo was a slower enterprise but a necessary one, when the snowpack was calf-deep, cheaper than a broken axel or a tow truck. Denied access to his garage, he hoped Chocobo Billy would let him store Fenrir in one of the rented stables, when the time came.

_I don’t know if I can trust you right now._

He couldn’t stop thinking about her panties. The rusted flower, inlaid among tufts of crumpled white tissue and crimped floss, caged inside the waste bin—the blood was incongruous with the impeccable cleanliness of the bathroom, and he had stared for a while, not understanding, until he understood. Her unusually long shower, her broken arm, her stark fear: all diversions hinting at an unspoken savagery. She was still protecting him, even now, in her way that was not in itself lying; deception by omission, shielding them both from the unpalatable facts. At some point the next day, the panties vanished, the evidence discreetly destroyed.

He still couldn’t remember, weeks after. Unsurprising—he didn’t remember attacking Aerith either, years after, having been prevented from taking it further only by the intervention of his comrades. It was a mercy he didn’t deserve. He wanted to remember as much as he didn’t. He went through the day in his memory, second by second, searching for and failing to find the chunk of time he was sure he had lost. Missing too was the disorientation that always came afterwards, the coming to in an unfamiliar place with the subversive impression that something had gone wrong. He was at Fort Condor that afternoon, just a few hours’ drive from Edge. Even if it didn’t feel like the truth, he couldn’t argue against the possibility, the reality that, technically, he could have gotten there and back with enough time to finish his roster. Technically. He trusted Tifa’s memory more than his own, and his reincarnated shame only added to the weight of her word.

The ordered points of rooftops began to emerge in the distance, signaling his arrival at one of the villages outside Junon. He was still too far away to see the city itself, well-camouflaged by yellowed hills, or the ocean beyond it. Having taken this route countless times, he drove on autopilot, paying only minimal attention to his surroundings. He swerved at the last minute to avoid a capparwire in the middle of the road, not losing speed, indulging in the short-lived temptation to hit it. His phone began to ring faintly in his pocket, its high-pitched whine almost washed away by the wind, and his stomach backflipped into his chest. Gradually he came to a stop on the side of the road, pulling out his phone to read the word _Home_ at the top of the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hi Cloud.”

“Hi, Marlene.” His stomach settled. He released the short sting of disappointment. “What’s up?”

“I have a couple delivery orders for you.”

“All right, hold on a sec.”

Producing a pen a notepad from one of Fenrir’s front compartments, he remained mounted on the bike, listening to her recite the phone messages left on his answering machine. His hands began to burn as the blood flowed back into them.

A couple days a week either Marlene or Denzel called with orders and messages for the delivery service. Information which could have easily been texted or forwarded to his cellphone; the three of them tacitly understood the importance of these calls—they were holding him up, delaying his slow descent into the sundering totality of his angst, the final thin thread connecting him to the life and people he loved. He had given up calling home himself when Tifa started screening his calls on the bar’s landline and in his office upstairs. His pathetic voicemails to her cell phone went unanswered.

A heavy quiet settled over the phone as Marlene finished the last message.

“How are things?”

“Okay,” she said. Her voice held none of its normal gaiety, a blatant sign that things were far from okay. “Cloud? When are you coming home?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Will you be home for New Year’s? You missed Yule…”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for the books, by the way. I really like the one about the chocobo herder. It has a girl in it who reminds me of a girl in my class. She’s really pretty but not very smart.”

“Oh. I’m glad you like them.” It had occurred to him later that one or two of the books may have been too mature for Marlene, not having read them himself, but her reading level was higher than other kids her age. She said the age-appropriate books were boring.

“Denzel likes the football you sent him, too.”

“That’s good.” He liked the idea of Denzel kicking a football around, imagining him with his friends playing in front of Seventh Heaven; liked the idea of him staying a kid just a little longer. Not long ago Denzel had applied to join the WRO, and it had been a wakeup call for Cloud. He saw suddenly how fast time had started moving. Not much longer and Denzel would be the age Cloud was when he left to find his fate in the big city, too young to fully grasp the consequences of his choice.

“How’s Tifa?” he asked. He couldn’t help himself from asking. For weeks he had refrained from asking, clinging to the remaining shreds of his pride, until his curiosity got the better of him.

Another pause, heavier than the first; the cold wriggled down his neck.

“She’s working a lot. She keeps the bar open late now. It’s hard to sleep sometimes, we can hear customers talking and banging things downstairs in the middle of the night.” Cloud didn’t like the idea of Tifa working the bar late, especially without him home to supervise. They had talked about it before, and had agreed that the extra income wasn’t worth putting up with the damage or the incivility. She may have gotten used to it in the slums, and he didn't worry that she wouldn't be able to handle herself, but she didn’t need to. Not anymore.

“She’s sad,” Marlene went on. “She doesn’t let me or Denzel see her cry, but I can tell. Her nose always gets really red.” The girl sighed, her tone honed sharp with impatience. “Why did you leave again? Why won’t you come home?”

“I want to.” His voice clogged in his throat. “It’s up to Tifa,” he confessed. “She’s…mad at me.”

“Yeah.” Marlene didn’t sound surprised. “She yells sometimes.”

“She yelled at you?”

“She yells at the customers, mostly. And she yelled at Denzel for forgetting to lock the front door once.” It was out of character for Tifa to raise her voice indoors, much less to her customers, the very people who supported her business and thereby her family, some of whom were neighbors, like family. “You should just come back,” said Marlene. “Then she won’t be angry and sad anymore.”

Cloud wished it was that easy. She hiccupped, and he could hear her eyes welling with tears miles away.

“I will, soon.”

“You promise?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“Say it. Say you promise.”

“I promise.”

What good were his promises? As he grew older he came to see what useless conventions promises were, his in particular. Unfair to make, impossible to keep. He had promised to protect Tifa, and had failed to come through time and again on that promise; ironically, it turned out that he posed the most danger to her. Marlene was too young to comprehend the black secrets kept between Cloud and Tifa. Eventually she would be old enough to learn for herself the uselessness of Cloud’s promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait guys! The stress of current events took my head out of the game for a little bit. I've also been struggling with writing this in sequential order, which delays updates more, but on the bright side it means that later parts have already been written. Next chapter will be posted within the next couple weeks, I promise. Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a couple of weeks ended up being a couple of months, woops! Anyway, thank you all so much for your kudos and reviews! Special thanks to Arisa_K, tocasia and bouncymouse, your kind words mean so much to me and help motivate me to work on this story. I appreciate you all!

Tifa pulled all of her focus into her arm, pooling it into the iron grip she had on the counter’s edge, thick epoxy winking under the dull bar lighting. She could hear every voice, each its own entity, rising like a wall of noise on all sides, bludgeoning her eardrums like a screaming freight train. The chili simmering on the stove turned her stomach, and she swallowed against the acid building at the back of her throat.

“You okay, Tifa?”

“Fine!” She didn’t turn around. The flock of voices dimmed to a tolerable volume; the flood of heat at the surface of her skin began to ebb, and the resultant sheen of sweat left her chilled. Testing the resilience of her stomach with short, careful breaths through her nose, she glanced up from the counter.

“You sure? You don’t look so hot.”

She grimaced in an attempt to smile, reached over to the shelf and held a bottle out to him, towards which he diligently pushed his half-empty glass.

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “It’s so loud in here.”

“Hey, what’d I tell ya? You stay open later, more people are gonna come. Take my next bit of free advice and enjoy the success while you got it, babe.”

The place was packed. At their tables, people shouted at each other, competing to be heard over themselves. Soon the dinner rush would be over, and the couples and families would leave for the pasteurized refuge of their own homes, places filled by their abject counterparts.

She hadn’t expected business to pick up like it had, enough that she could seriously consider hiring a dishwasher, at least part time. It was a fortuitous benefit to what had otherwise been an exercise in distraction—to avoid the darkness and the intolerable quiet that accompanied it. Truly restful sleep evaded her, and she had abandoned the instinct to pursue it. Now a matter of self-preservation, there was no other option but to keep moving, not forward but in hectic, exhausting circles. She found a benevolent reprieve in the chaos left by others, a game of codependency in which both sides were complicit; she needed their recklessness and nonsensical drunk talk as much as they needed to indulge themselves in drink. As long as they came to her bar seeking the particular brand of oblivion she sold, she would respond in kind, and her own problems could be ignored for another day.

From across the room, Tifa watched Marlene weaving in a practiced dance between the tables, bussing tray at her hip.

_Frail._

It was a selfish choice, to stay open later. Denzel was upstairs, toiling on the second attempt at the most recent assignment he’d flunked. His grades had started slipping, and he was spending more time out of the house, choosing to keep his company with the wayward boys from the ruins, as if reclaiming his title as an orphan among them. So often she thought about his parents, about the enormous proportions of the onus bequeathed to her and all of the ways she failed to measure up to them. In every way her best fell short of what either of them deserved.

Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, Tifa went into the kitchen to check on the chili. It was the cumin—in the bar she could pick up on its scent mingling with the garlic powder and the onion and the paprika as clearly as if the spice jar was being held directly under her nose, singeing the inside of her nasal passages. In the kitchen the smell was overpowering. It levitated from the massive pot like a miasma, summoning the bile from her stomach, and she leaned over the waste bin to retch. Shaking, Tifa wiped her mouth and washed her hands at the sink, hoping disconsolately that whatever bug she’d picked up would run its course, that she wouldn’t pass it along to the kids or any of the customers in the meantime.

A crash came from the barroom, and she pushed her nausea aside.

“Son of a bitch! The hell’s the matter with you?”

“I’m so sorry! I’ll clean it up, don’t worry.”

“You better clean it up! Look at this mess!”

“What’s going on here?” Tifa descended on the scene of the wreckage. Marlene was fussing over the table, sweeping the foam and bits of glass onto her tray with a saturated dishtowel, her head bowed; Tifa bent to help her, plates and silverware dripping and sticky with beer.

The man at the table smeared his palm over his face, grimacing. “Your idiot waitress just broke my glass. ” His eyes were like marbles pressed into soggy dough, rising into the wide dome of his head, straying from her face as she leaned in to herd the smallest pieces of glass into her apron.

“It was an accident. We’ll get you a new drink, on the house.”

“I want my bill comped. My food’s ruined.”

“Of course. I’ll bring out a brand new plate for you.”

“What kind of business you running here anyway? I could have hurt myself.”

“Thankfully you didn’t,” Tifa said coolly.

“I want you to bring me my food from now on. I don’t trust that moron near me.”

Tifa straightened, glowering down at him. “You will apologize to my daughter. Then I’m going to have to ask you leave.”

“Like hell I will! It’s not my fault she’s a clumsy little shit.”

Her response was automatic and instantaneous. The crunch of his nose as it caved in under her knuckles sent an exultant pleasure coursing through her, and her other hand grabbed a fistful of oily, thinning hair, shoving his face sideways into the half-eaten food on his plate.

“Apologize.”

“What the hell!” He coughed, trying to exorcise the food being inhaled into his collapsed nostrils. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

“Apologize.”

“Let me go!”

“Apologize.”

“Okay! Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

“Now get out.”

Sputtering like a feral cat, he stumbled against the chair, swiping at the bits of bloodied food on his face. “This is how you treat your customers? I should report you!”

“Get out of my bar.” Tifa took a step forward, but he was already at the door, staggering in haste to get away from her.

“Good luck staying in business like that! Bitch!”

A shocked, tense silence crushed the room. Only a select number of her regulars continued to eat, unperturbed by the commotion.

“Sorry about that folks.” Her laugh sounded reedy and artificial in her ears. Turning around, she saw that Marlene had gone. Tifa removed the last pieces of broken glass and tableware and followed her into the kitchen.

Marlene stood facing the garage, squeezing her hands under her armpits as if trying to rewarm herself in the midst of a blizzard.

“Oh honey.” Tifa could feel the girl’s skinny body trembling through her shoulders, before Marlene ducked from under her grasp. “Why don’t you go upstairs? I can take it from here.” Without reply, Marlene dashed out of the kitchen, and Tifa listened to the door to the kids’ bedroom slam shut above her.

When she returned to the bar, three tables were ready to settle their checks. She wiped down the empty tables, swept and mopped the floor, pushed in the chairs, rearranged the salt and pepper shakers with the napkin dispenser. Not twenty minutes later and it was as if nothing had happened. Diners returned to their moderated banter, every once in a while sneaking a glance at the pretty bartender and her deadly, steel-capped fists. She could feel their eyes on her, like wary, furtive prey.

“Damn.” Ruiz whistled. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“He had it coming. What kind of asshole talks like that to a nine-year old?”

“Still. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you hit a man before, though you’ve come close.” She wanted to tell him how much worse she had done to other men, thinking of the necks she had snapped, the kidneys tenderized and tracheas crushed; of all the lives razed by the gluttonous fire of battle. One broken nose was child’s play. “Is that what happened to your man?” Ruiz added jokingly. “You kick his ass too?”

Something in her stance must have relayed the loathing and hostility reigniting inside her, only thinly concealed behind the polite blankness of her face, and he retrained his eyes down at his drink, took a large swig of its amber liquid.

“I’m going to go up and check on her,” she said, her speech clipped. “Keep an eye on things for me. I’ll be right back. And don’t think I won’t notice if you take anything behind the bar. The bottles are marked.”

At the top of the stairs, she stopped to listen over the din from the first floor, trying to interpret the muffled voices on the other side of the door to the kids’ room; listened as the voices hushed at the sound of her knock on the wood.

The lamps in their bedroom pulled long, grainy shadows from the furniture. Denzel was hunched stiffly on his bed, school assignment scattered and forgotten beside him. Marlene had curled herself into a small shape, knees to her chest, facing away from him. Tifa sat down on the end of her bed, gingerly moving Marlene’s many multicolored stuffed animals out of the way; among them Marlene’s favorite, Bobo, the Nubi bear Barret had won for her at last year’s Summer Fair.

“You okay?” Tifa touched her arm. “Don’t let him bother you, sweetie. You know people can be jerks sometimes.”

Marlene sniffled. “You didn’t have to hit him.”

“What?”

“All he did was say some bad words. He would have left. You didn’t have to hit him.”

Chagrined, she could feel the straggling embers of her irritation evaporate. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that. We always tell you guys fighting should only be used as a last resort, right? I let my anger get the better of me, and I’ll have to deal with the consequences later. I’ve probably already lost a few customers.” She could neither deny nor admit openly the warped delight that had come with removing the smarmy glint beneath that ape’s postured frown; that whatever consequences which followed were more than worth the resultant blossom of satisfaction, like a bright spark of light that pierced the endless grey fog. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

Marlene huffed into the blankets, and turned to examine Tifa, her round eyes puffy and glistening.

“Why are you mad at Cloud? Why won’t you let him come home?”

Tifa gaped at her for a second, speechless. “I told you Cloud’s working. He’ll come home when he’s done.”

“You’re lying! Cloud says he wants to come home but you won’t let him!”

Tifa drew her hand away, shocked not just by the allegation but by its righteous accuracy. She knew the kids talked to Cloud—since taking up the responsibility of relaying his delivery orders, they spoke to him on the phone every few days—but she hadn’t expected him to betray their implicit agreement to keep the kids out of it. What else had he told them? Should she have paid more attention to those calls; those private communions, held with respectful discretion when she was out running errands or preoccupied with the bar. She glanced over at Denzel, who quickly averted his eyes from her as if disgraced by his own involvement. She felt deceived and excluded.

“There’s a lot more to it than that, Marlene.”

“Like what?”

“It’s grown-up stuff. We’re figuring it out.”

Marlene moaned. “How can you figure it out if you’re not even _talking_ to each other?!”

“It’s complicated. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pry into mine and Cloud’s business.”

Marlene refused to give in. She opened her mouth as if to press the point, straining to match the glacial austerity in Tifa’s face, and, perhaps acknowledging that even with tenacity and reason on her side the argument could not be won, sighed loudly. She turned back towards the wall, hiding her face with a tonberry plushie. Tifa aimed her attention at Denzel, and he impaled her with a pointed look, managing to appear both contrite and accusatory at the same time. For a moment she marveled at how much of Cloud’s mannerisms had rubbed off on him, that such poignancy of expression could be taught, intentionally or not, especially to someone so young. 

“How about you? How’s that homework coming?”

“I’m almost done.”

“Good. I want to look at it tomorrow morning before you leave for school. Don’t forget to brush your teeth before bed, okay guys?” She stood up quickly, moving to the door without waiting for an answer.

Stepping out into the hallway, she was immediately accosted by the chili, its duplicitous fragrance wafting up the staircase from the first floor, waiting for her to exit the closed sanctuary of the kids’ room. She made it to the bathroom at the end of the hall just as her stomach wrenched around itself, but there was nothing left to purge, only a sour yellow goop that left a fiercely bitter residue on her tongue. At the sink, she rinsed her face, wearily noting the dark crescents haunting her eyes in the mirror.

How was she supposed to explain it to them, to Barret, to the rest of their friends? If Cloud didn’t come back—and he wouldn’t, not without her permission—she would eventually have to tell them why. She could almost hear their inadvertent criticism, their sympathetic judgments; she had no answers to the questions she knew were coming, questions she’d been asking herself now for weeks. Like how could she have allowed it to happen in the first place. Tifa was no damsel in distress—surely there had been an opening, some opportunity to turn his strength against him and get the upper hand, the way her training dictated. And after everything they’d been through, after everything she’d forgiven him for, was it really so bad she couldn’t forgive him again, find some way to move past it?

The truth was she had already forgiven him. Like her inclination towards secrecy, forgiveness had become a habit, ingrained and easy; like her love, her absolution was a force with its own autonomy. As clearly as she could remember Sephiroth’s laughter on the back of her neck, she understood Cloud’s innocence. It wasn’t fair to keep punishing him for something in which his consciousness had not taken part. She missed him—his calming self-possession, his dry sense of humor, his random moments of unaffected sweetness. She couldn’t help but worry about him, about the effect his guilt was having on his mental health. It troubled her to think that, as much as both of them had already been hurt, she was still hurting him by keeping him away.

Things were harder without him; she was on track to run herself into the ground at this rate, yet she found the alternative as unbearable. She’d gotten used to the space in some ways, and the idea of relinquishing it made her pulse throb in her temples and her palms to sweat. She worried about what would happen if she couldn’t get over that feeling.

Combing her fingers through her hair, she patted down the last unruly strands into as passing imitation of respectability, and headed back downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to all the service workers out there: we see you and we appreciate you! Not gonna lie, it was kinda satisfying writing this chapter. Since punching people in the face generally isn't an accepted (or effective) method of conflict resolution, it's nice to live vicariously through fiction once in a while. Let me know what you guys think!


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